Duck death toll mounts in Alberta oilsands

Workers undertake the recovery of oil-soaked waterfowl at Syncrude's Mildred Lake Settling Basin, 40 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, on Oct. 26, 2010. Over 200 birds were euthanized after landing on the tailings pond.

Photograph by: Greg Halinda, Special to the Journal
, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON — Syncrude is again under investigation for allowing waterfowl to perish on one of its tailings ponds, potentially setting off more international condemnation of the oilsands.

Ducks also landed on Suncor and Shell's tailing ponds, resulting in more duck deaths.

The incidents happened three days after Syncrude faced a historic $3-million fine for allowing 1,600 ducks to perish on another of its tailings ponds in 2008.

At last available count, about 230 oil-covered ducks that landed on the Mildred Lake tailings pond Monday were euthanized.

The premier and environment minister reacted with dismay.

"Particularly, in light of the courts just making their decision last week, it's certainly aggravating and frustrating," Premier Ed Stelmach said. He said he's curious to know why it happened: Did someone fail to comply with regulations or pull deterrent equipment off early?

Operating approvals for oilsands companies require them to have comprehensive bird deterrent systems in place.

Renner said Albertans deserve better than this. "I thought we had moved the agenda significantly forward so that this kind of incident would be minimized. But the fact of the matter is we are now dealing with what appears to be a similar incident. The circumstances are likely different and we'll wait until we have a thorough investigation to see what if anything can be attributed to the cause."

Alberta Environment says freezing rain may have contributed to the ducks landing on the toxic tailings pond.

It's not clear yet exactly how many ducks landed on the pond, said Cheryl Robb, a Syncrude spokeswoman, stressing the 230figure was preliminary.

"It's hit us really hard," she added. "We put a lot of effort into improving our systems and understanding what happened in 2008. It's something we were all committed to doing our very best to ensure it didn't happen again."

Suncor said it recovered a "small number" of oiled birds, which had to be euthanized. The company's deterrent systems were operating and, in light of severe weather conditions, "additional personnel were deployed to all Suncor ponds with air horns as an additional measure to keep waterfowl away," the company said in a statement.

Staff from Syncrude, Alberta Environment and Alberta Sustainable Resource Development went onto the Mildred Lake tailings pond at dawn Tuesday and spent much of the day recovering birds, said Cara Tobin, an Alberta Environment spokeswoman. No birds were sent to a rehabilitation centre.

The weather likely played a major role in the incident.

"What we understand, so far, is that one of the contributing factors may have been freezing rain. In those types of weather conditions the best bird deterrents wouldn't be effective," Tobin said. "In extreme weather conditions, birds will seek out a safe location and that's their priority. And if that's the only water body in the area they might be driven to that because of extreme weather. However, that is a possible explanation. The actual details will come out in the investigation."

Colleen Cassady St. Clair, a University of Alberta biology associate professor, said the ducks were moving through the area much later than usual, possibly because October was unusually mild. Cassady St. Clair said it will be interesting to see if there is a connection between the ducks landing in large numbers and the large temperature and barometric pressure drops that accompany storms.

"I think forewarned is forearmed. If it were possible to predict that landing is more likely with particular meteorological conditions, then the deterrent effort could be redoubled or more in a way that maybe wouldn't be sustainable or affordable all the time."

About $1.3 million from Syncrude's creative sentence will fund a three-year research project at the U of A aimed at finding the best methods to protect birds from the dangers of toxic tailings lakes.

Syncrude is in a particularly bad spot when it comes to its tailings ponds, Cassady St. Clair said. Mildred Lake tailings pond, like the Aurora pond, is close to the Athabasca River, which is a migratory corridor for birds.

Mildred Lake is 32 years old and contains water that has been recycled repeatedly, meaning it becomes increasingly toxic and more likely to contain bitumen, she said.

"My impression from the literature is that birds that land on bitumen-containing water bodies are as good as dead," she said. "The recovery rate of oiled birds that actually survive just in the short term is about one per cent." Cassady St. Clair said rehabilitation efforts are well-meaning, but unfortunately they don't seem to work.

"The birds seem to be poisoned by ingesting even small amounts of these toxic compounds and they necessarily ingest those compounds because the first thing they do when they come into contact with a contaminant on their feathers is try to preen the contaminant away.

"As an animal behaviourist, I think the kindest thing to do for those birds is to euthanize them quickly and as painlessly as possible, unfortunately. It's really depressing. That's why deterrence is so important. The only way to win this game is to keep the birds from landing. The game is over after they've landed."

Shell said one duck was found on a road and one was found at Albian Village work camp. "In addition, Shell crews observed that two birds were oiled at the Muskeg River mine tailings pond, but were unable to capture them."

Shell said its deterrent systems were working.

Syncrude's Robb said there were different circumstances this time. They did have the deterrent system deployed at the Mildred Lake tailings pond, whereas a late spring storm had prevented the company from setting up equipment at the Aurora tailings pond in 2008. And this time around they were also able to get out on the water right away to pick up the birds.

Syncrude reported the waterfowl on the tailings pond to Alberta Environment, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development and the Energy Resources Conservation Board around 10:30 p.m. Monday night, Robb said. She said staff first noticed the birds on the pond 15 minutes earlier. They did not yet have their new radar system, which can see birds coming from up to 25 kilometres away, hooked up to their deterrent system.

Robb said the freezing rain storm in the localized area likely made it difficult for birds to fly. Exhaustedlooking birds that landed on roads and parking lots were approachable, suggesting fatigue forced them to land, she said.

But Alberta NDP MLA Rachel Notley said aggressive action is needed to reduce the size of tailings ponds. "Unfortunately, this is going to continue to create the impression that we're not taking seriously our obligation to keep our environment preserved and to develop the oilsands in a responsible way."

Edmonton-Strathcona NDP MP Linda Duncan said the federal government needs to sit down with the province and figure out how to shut these tailings ponds down quickly.

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